Eagle on Granite Boulder at Dusk
Here has an infinite capacity to astound Or I have an infinite capacity to be astounded. It’s like remembering…
What Time Is It?
On the pear tree at six the blackbird speaks. He talks of no creation that we, translated to his…
The Man from Perugia
Pietro di Cristoforo Vannucci kept a bowl Of herbs which flourished by his window. Morning light Discovered him in…
Vertigo on the Glenshane Pass
I was not bothered by the stitching under your eye until we reached the plateau and you fell in…
Three Poems
Dis The obvious story, my darling, is that Dis caught you into his dark kingdom. I don’t know where I…
Labrys Child
Well grown I am the axe of two horns born of beast hair and her sharp flesh The pretty…
Poppy Day in a County Dublin Convent School
Break time. I shook the poppies in a box fired with the mission of remembrance. The green-uniformed girls favoured…
The Phoenix of Blackburn
Pigeons roosted in chimneys, made do with muck in lieu of nest – cooed like wind in bottleneck, shrugged…
Chest of Drawers
She speaks to the postman frequently, gives him small jars of cloudy honey at Christmas and invites him in…
Conkers (Foret de Saint Germain en Laye)
Good for curing what-ails-you old wives profess. She thinks them found coin jingling in pockets of leaf mulch of…
The Return
I woke and found the jade back in my palm and scrambled out of bed. Lock by lock I…
Fleming Ward
That night, with thirty-nine degrees stoking my brain, I heard a seagull in the dialysis machine opposite – it…
Martin Luther Reads ‘The Pardoner’s Tale’
I imagine the monk Martin in his cell, around the hour they clink the evening bell: he flickers through…
Josiah Wedgwood (1730-95)
All is in retrospect ... – Katherine Mansfield And there’s his likeness: ‘Vase-Maker General to the Universe,’…
The Will to Live
Ghayth Armanazi, Syrian diplomat and writer, provides a timely extract in translation from this iconic Arabic poem.